Joyce Morgan
WHEN the 18 performers of Babelgather, they seem to demonstrate the biblical curse.
The artists from Japan, India, Norway, Bolivia, Morocco, the US and elsewhere speak more than a dozen languages.
Ever since God is said to have punished the builders of the Tower of Babel for attempting to reach the heavens, people have splintered into different language groups and scattered across the globe.
Language and territory are central to the piece by choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet of Belgium.
Jalet, who also performs in the piece, says that language and territory have been enduring sources of bloodshed over the centuries.
”It’s good to be proud of your culture and language but it can actually crush other people. So it’s a balance. How do you do it in a way that you don’t harm anybody? That’s what humanity hasn’t found,” Jalet says.
”There’s a constant tension between heritage, which our grandfather and ancestors gave us, and how we relate to that heritage and how do we keep it?”
As the world becomes more globalised, national identities are breaking down, he says.
The work is confronting as it shifts from humour – such as when a performer arrives like a conquering hero and, tongue in cheek, extols the primacy of the English language – to stylised violence. But it also challenges the idea that language divides us.
As well as movement and spoken word,Babel invokes a wide musical language. Musicians and singers draw on a range of influences from mediaeval polyphonic chants and Turkish music to Hindi beats and Japanese taiko drumming.
With its innovative choreography and a set by leading British sculptor Antony Gormley, the Olivier Award-winning production promises to be one of the Sydney Festival highlights.
Performer Paea Leach, one of two Australians in the cast, says when she began working on it two years ago, much communication was non-verbal.
”We used a lot of gesture,” she says. ”We had to find a movement language.”
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